1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to devices for use by police and the like to deflate the tires of a vehicle being operated by fleeing persons.
2. Prior Art
It is well recognized that police officials from time to time find it necessary to stop the vehicle being operated by persons who are fleeing or attempting to avoid being stopped.
Portable barricades have often been used in attempts to stop a vehicle. The blockade may be framed structures but often a portable barricade is formed with police vehicles placed to extend transversely across a roadway. It is not uncommon, however, that fugitives will attempt to drive through a blockade of saw-horse type or other framed structures or around or even through a blockade of vehicles. Naturally, there is a potentially high element of danger to police officers manning a road block and the cost is very high should a fugitive attempt to crash his vehicle through a barricade, particularly if the barricade is made of police vehicles.
Generally, also, it requires a large number of police personnel to set up and man a road blockade.
The need for a means of disabling a vehicle that can be established and manned by even a single police officer and that will effectively disable a vehicle containing one or more fleeing individuals has been recognized in the past. Thus, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,382,714, there is disclosed a vehicle disabling means in the form of a plurality of hollow, spike-like devices adapted to project perpendicular to a road surface to puncture one or more tires of a fleeing vehicle. A plurality of the devices may be interconnected to facilitate placement and to create a flailing effect within the wheel well of the vehicle.
Other tire puncturing devices, using hollow needles arranged to point vertically upwardly or upwardly at an angle and supported by metal bars or heavy canvas and/or rubber mats have also been known.